Thursday, January 28, 2010

The major objective of the tuning update is to get more goal-scoring variation and loosen up goal scoring. There is now more variety in CPU goalie positioning as well as a bunch of other tweaks to how goalies position, how fast they can move and accelerate, rebound control, screen effects, reaction speeds, and more.

For online the duration of the post-whistle time has been reduced, and a few gameplay exploits have been reduced.

Beyond getting more varied goal scoring we wanted to address a number of other issues that have been identified by the community and that we are able to improve through a tuning update. Because a significant number of changes were made in this update we will be paying close attention to how things play out in the coming weeks and responding with additional fine tuning as necessary.

All online games use the new tuning set. After downloading the update offline games can use the new tuning update by switching the “Tuner Set Version” under Gameplay Settings/General to either Latest (which is the default) or V1.03. You can also switch to earlier versions if you prefer to keep things the same as they have been.

Highlights of the update include: -Increased variation in goalie positioning -Rebounds directed further to the side of the net -Small reduction in goalie reaction times, top speed and acceleration -Increase in screen effect on goalies (online only) -Reduced post-whistle time (online only) -Decreased effectiveness of the pass block (LB/L1) at taking the puck away -Increased frequency of deflections (EASHL/OTP only) -Prevent CPU defenders from being easily lured into hooking penalties in EASHL/OTP games -Improved ability to intercept weak passes -For EASHL/OTP, the range of the some of the attribute effects has been increased